Social vulnerability assessment of the Cologne urban area (Germany) to heat waves: links to ecosystem services

Depietri, Yaella; Welle, Torsten; Renaud, Fabrice G.

doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2013.10.001

Cited by 100 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…A study in Cologne, Germany highlighted that ecosystem services might be effective in terms of microclimate regulation but much less in terms of air purification which has implications for risk to extreme heat (Depietri et al 2013). Urban cooling by green spaces can be significant.…”

Section: Green and Blue Infrastructuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Integrating the Grey, Green, and Blue in Cities: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Reduction

Depietri

McPhearson

2017

Theory and Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions

Self Cite

127

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cities are high emitters of greenhouse gases and are drivers of environmental modification, often leading to degradation and fragmentation of ecosystems at local and regional scales. Linked to these trends is a growing threat experienced by urban areas: the risk from hydro-meteorological and climatological hazards, further accentuated by climate change. Ecosystems and their services, though often overlooked or degraded, can provide multiple hazard regulating functions such as coastal and surface flood regulation, temperature regulation and erosion control. Engineering or grey approaches often do not tackle the root causes of risk and can increase the vulnerability of populations over the long-term. However, evidence of alternative approaches such as the role of healthy, functioning ecosystems in disaster risk reduction are still scarce, contentious, and with limited applicability in the urban context. This chapter explores the role of grey, green, and blue infrastructure and in particular hybrid approaches for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to shed light on available sustainable adaptation opportunities in cities and urban areas. We highlight the dependence of cities on ecosystems as a key component of climate resilience building through case studies and literature review. At the same time, we highlight the limitation and drawbacks in the adoption of merely grey or merely green infrastructures. We suggest that an intermediate 'hybrid' approach, which combines both blue, green and grey approaches, may be the most effective strategy for reducing risk to hazards in the urban context.

show abstract

Section: Green and Blue Infrastructuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research is beginning to demonstrate the importance of preserving well-functioning ecosystems in and around urban areas for DRR and to protect and enhance human well-being (see Depietri et al 2011 for a review; Depietri et al 2013;Andersson et al, Chap. 4, this volume).…”

Section: Embrace Both Green and Grey Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating the Grey, Green, and Blue in Cities: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Reduction

Depietri

McPhearson

2017

Theory and Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions

Self Cite

127

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The MOVE framework has thus far been applied quantitatively using a range of socioeconomic and socioecological indicators for different hazards and settings (Depietri et al 2013;Welle et al 2014;Kablan et al 2017). Our adapted MOVE framework is applied qualitatively in a small island in the South Pacific.…”

Section: Adapting the Move Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Framework for Disaster Vulnerability in a Small Island in the Southwest Pacific: A Case Study of Emae Island, Vanuatu

Jackson

McNamara

Witt

2017

Int J Disaster Risk Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The societal costs of disasters around the world are continuing to increase and Pacific Island countries are considered some of the most vulnerable. This is primarily due to a combination of high hazard exposure coupled with a range of social, economic, physical, and political vulnerabilities. This article contributes to the growing body of work that aims to understand the causal factors of disaster vulnerability, but with a specific focus on small island developing states. The article first develops a framework for understanding disaster vulnerability, drawing on extensive literature and the well-established Methods for the Improvement of Vulnerability in Europe (MOVE) framework, and second, applies this adapted framework using empirically-derived data from fieldwork on Emae Island, Vanuatu to provide a working understanding of the causal elements of disaster vulnerability. Drawn from a significant body of scholarship at the time, the MOVE framework was primarily developed as a heuristic tool in which disaster vulnerability is considered to be a function of exposure, susceptibility (socially, economically, physically, culturally, environmentally, institutionally), and a lack of resilience. We posit that this adapted framework for small islands should also include historical susceptibility, and we prefer livelihood resilience (as capabilities, social capital, knowledge, participation, and human rights) over lack of resilience. We maintain that understanding disaster vulnerability holistically, which is inclusive of both strengths and drawbacks, is crucial to ensure that limited resources can target the causal factors that produce vulnerability and help safeguard and improve livelihoods in both the short and long term.

show abstract

“…The vulnerability of population is estimated using Beijing's census data in this study, which varies with population characteristics such as age, population density, physical conditions, behavioral factors, living environment and socio-economic factors [6,29,[45][46][47]. Many studies have shown that high population density may be considered the initial vulnerable reason for heat health risk [48][49][50].…”

Section: Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ecosystems can make important contributions to mitigate the impact of heat waves [29]. For example, a park could be 0.94 °C cooler than the surroundings in the day on average [30].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Heat Health Risk for Sustainability in Beijing’s Urban Heat Island

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research is motivated by the increasing threat of urban heat waves that are likely worsened by pervasive global warming and urbanization. Different regions of the city including urban, borderland and rural area will experience different levels of heat health risk. In this paper, we propose an improved approach to quantitatively assess Beijing's heat health risk based on three factors from hazard, vulnerability and especially environment which is considered as an independent factor because different land use/cover types have different influence on ambient air temperatures under the Urban Heat Island effect. The results show that the heat health risk of Beijing demonstrates a spatial-temporal pattern with higher risk in the urban area, lower risk in the borderland between urban and rural area, and lowest risk in the rural area, and the total risk fluctuated dramatically during 2008-2011. To be more specific, the heat health risk was clearly higher in 2009 and 2010 than in 2008 and 2011. Further analysis with the urban area at sub-district level signifies that the impervious surface (urban area such as buildings, roads, et al.) ratio is of high correlation with the heat health risk. The validation results show that the proposed method improved the accuracy of heat OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2014, 6 7335 health risk assessment. We recommend that policy makers should develop efficient urban planning to accomplish Beijing's sustainable development.

show abstract

Social vulnerability assessment of the Cologne urban area (Germany) to heat waves: links to ecosystem services

Cited by 100 publications

References 54 publications

Integrating the Grey, Green, and Blue in Cities: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Reduction

Integrating the Grey, Green, and Blue in Cities: Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Reduction

A Framework for Disaster Vulnerability in a Small Island in the Southwest Pacific: A Case Study of Emae Island, Vanuatu

Assessing Heat Health Risk for Sustainability in Beijing’s Urban Heat Island

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About